Arkane Austin’s Harvey Smith has also praised Microsoft for being the potentially best partner for Bethesda.
Smith told Vandal in an interview that he was previously working at Arkane Lyon to help develop Dishonored 2, but he returned to Arkane Austin. However, he is not involved in the development of Deathloop. Instead, he is working „with the guys who made Dishonored and Prey” on „something else.” We’ll have to wait until Microsoft allows him to reveal more details on what he is doing at the moment. (He previously also was involved in Deus Ex.)
He was a little more talkative about Microsoft, the new owners of Zenimax (who themselves own Bethesda): „I think the process is still unfolding, I can’t say much about it because I don’t know much either. I would say there has been no change at Arkane so far, but if I were to imagine the ideal partner, thinking of all the publishers and the people I know who work for them, it would be very, very difficult to find a better partner for Bethesda than Microsoft. They fit perfectly.”
Previously, when Microsoft announced the acquisition (which should complete this year, as recently mentioned by Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox), Todd Howard (Bethesda Game Studios – The Elder Scrolls, Fallout since the third game, Starfield) said: „We can’t think of a better group of people to do that with than those at Xbox. We have friendships that go back to those original days. From Phil to his senior leaders to developer support, they don’t just talk about putting players first, they passionately live it.”
Pete Hines, the head of marketing at Bethesda, added: „Our companies share many of the same basic principles. We believe in a culture that values passion, quality, collaboration, and innovation. When I think back to the first time we decided to shift from being a PC-only developer and make Morrowind for the original Xbox, it was a move that countless people said would never work…nobody on consoles wanted a game that big and complex. But Microsoft believed in us and so did you. And now RPGs of all shapes and sizes are hugely successful on consoles.”
Let’s be patient about Smith’s next project.
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